Sunday, November 27, 2011

Thanksgiving and a Retirement Party

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal on Thursday. The cooking staff did a great job on the food and presentation. We also had another retirement party here last night. John Hanna, the island manager for DBSI (our contractor, Defense Based Services, Inc., formerly known as Chugach Industries) retired after being on island for about 8 years. Have a great retirement, John!
Our new volunteers are learning the ropes, and they seem to be enjoying their work so far. They don't have too many albatross bites yet, but they'll be getting more as soon as they have to start banding them.

Here's the Thanksgiving fruit table with a bunch of hibiscus flowers that grow around the island to add some color.

Here's the bread table, most was homemade by Laurel and really good.

Here's the head chef, Pong, carving the turkey.

For the big holidays, the tables at the Clipper House get pushed together, which is kind of nice once in a while.

Here's John and his wife Mali listening to Darlene's speech at the All Hands Club. The presentations were followed by a pool tournament and karaoke. Normally the band would play, but the lead guitar player is on vacation.

The volunteers are marking a Black-footed albatross nest near the south beach.

Here's a female Ring-necked duck swimming around in one of the seeps.

This is the Laysan/Black-footed albatross hybrid that hangs out across from the Midway House.

3 comments:

Best wishes to them too! It is hard to retire if you're working in a nice environment like that. Nonetheless, people should decide the time when they should just take a step into retirement. After years of work, one should spend a new chapter in their life working hard on some R&R.

Elated to know about your thanks giving and retirement party. While reading this, got reminded about my dad’s retirement party last month which we arranged at an elegant event venues Chicago. Glad that all his friends attended it.

About Me

After high school I went into the Navy doing nuclear power stuff on a submarine. After 6 years, I left the Navy then got my biology degree from Montana State Univ. I then worked for the USDA doing human nutrition research for 8 years. I also got my Master's Degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of North Dakota. While doing that I worked for Mr. Ellie Pooh selling elephant dung paper (google it) to help the Sri Lanka elephants. After that, I did the only logical thing with my MS and moved to Cleveland, OH and got a job in security at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. It was great, for a while, but I found a 1 year temporary job at Midway Atoll with the US Fish & Wildlife Service. I loved it so much that I moved to an even smaller island with only 4-15 people (Tern Island). After being the Asst Manager, then the Manager, I got the chance to go back to Midway as the Wildlife Biologist for a few more years. Just so you know, I didn't write this as an employee, I just commented about my days here and put up some photos, so these aren't the views of the FWS. I still do ocean work for the FWS, but I do it from the Headquarters office in the Washington D.C. area.